44 ROUND THE YEAR 



degree of fellow-feeling, some degree of self-sacrifice. 

 But the cat is solitary, goes her own way in silence, 

 and seeks her prey unaided. The short-lived but 

 intense love of the mother-cat for her young ones is 

 the only generous sentiment in cat-life. 



How curious that an animal so selfish, so cruel, so 

 fond of concealment and loneliness, should have ever 

 established itself in the dwellings of man ! Other 

 carnivores of like tastes have done the same thing. The 

 white-breasted Martin has been supposed to have been 

 the common domestic vermin-killer of the ancients. 

 The Genet is still domesticated here and there on the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, and makes a tolerable 

 cat. 1 Love of mice, it would appear, may in these 

 animals overpower the fear of man. But I suspect 

 that these cats, feline, musteline, or viverrine, were 

 first brought into the house as helpless kittens, and 

 had no choice in the matter. Their usefulness and 

 cleanliness made them agreeable inmates, and the 

 cat for her part came to value shelter, warmth, and 

 food. But she is not truly of the human family ; she 

 is a wild animal, which pays us the compliment of 

 residence with us. Her attachment is to the house 



1 Rolleston, "Domestic Cats, Ancient and Modern," Journal 

 of Anatomy, Vol. II. p. 57. Rolleston and Hehn believe that 

 no domestic cat was known to the Greeks and Romans. Some 

 of the Greek vases in the British Museum, especially F 207, 

 F 126, and 171, show cat-like animals which appear to be tame 

 and companionable. The spotted cat led in a string (E 172) is 

 perhaps a Leopard or Panther, which was familiar to the Greeks, 

 as a well-known passage of the Iliad shows (XXI. 572-8). The 

 domestication of the cat in Egypt must surely have led to its 

 occasional introduction into Greece and Italy. 



